How to solve Browser Compatibility issues

What are browser Compatibility issues?

I will try to explain it in the simplest possible way. Suppose you make any website and it looks perfectly alright in your default browser. Now you try opening the same website in some different browser, and you see some difference in its appearance. You again open the same website in a third browser and it again looks a bit different (as compared to the other two browsers). Now you start wondering, how to make the website appear same in all the browsers.

Yes.. You are now dealing with browser compatibility issues. It is the most common problem that every web-designer goes through. Every Website Developer / Designer spends most of his/ her time struggling to solve browser compatibility issues.

What Causes Browser Display Differences?

Different Browsers

Different Browser Versions

Different Computer Types

Different Screen Sizes

Different Font Sizes

HTML Errors

Browser Bugs

For a detailed description on each of the above listed topics, please visit this link.

How to solve browser Compatibility issues?

There are a set of rules and regulations that you need to follow in order to make your website look consistent across all the browsers, like using a correct DOC type, Validating your HTML and CSS etc. But here I am not going to discuss about all these rules.

Today I am going to share two major utilities with you which will solve almost all your browser compatibility issues. They are:

Reset CSS

CSS Browser Selector javascript

Reset CSS

Normally every browser assigns some default styles (like default line heights, margins, paddings, and font sizes, headings, and so on) to HTML elements. Because of this default styling adapted by the browsers, every html document appears to be a bit different in different browsers.

The use of Reset CSS file removes and neutralizes the inconsistent default styling of HTML elements, creating a levelled baseline across all major browsers and providing a sound foundation upon which you can explicitly declare your styles.

There are many reset style-sheets available on the internet today. You can find a good collection of different reset CSS files here. You can download and use any reset CSS stylesheet depending on your choice and requirement. Alternatively you can download my choice of reset CSS as a separate stylesheet; or copy and paste the following stylesheet code on top of your default stylesheet.

Lets assume a situation that you have created a webpage with font size of 16px.This web page appears to be the same in all the browsers, but in safari browser, you feel that the font size appears to be a bit bigger. To solve this issue, you can include the CSS Browser selector javascript between your <head> and </head> tags like this:

After this, you can define the style rules for safari browser like this which will solve your issue.

.safari body{
font-size: 15px;
}

As you can see the code above that we have defined a seperate class “.safari” for the safari browser. In the same way you can define the class “.ie” for Internet Explorer, and “.opera” for Opera browser. Following list shows you all the possible browser codes which you can use as classes for that particular browser.

ie — Internet Explorer

ie8 — Internet Explorer 8.x

ie7 — Internet Explorer 7.x

ie6 — Internet Explorer 6.x

ie5 — Internet Explorer 5.x

gecko — Mozilla, Firefox (all versions), Camino

ff2 — Firefox 2

ff3 — Firefox 3

opera — Opera (All versions)

opera8 — Opera 8.x

opera9 — Opera 9.x

opera10 — Opera 10.x

konqueror — Konqueror

webkit — Safari, NetNewsWire, OmniWeb, Shiira, Google Chrome

safari — Safari, NetNewsWire, OmniWeb, Shiira

safarii3 — Safari 3.x

chrome — Google Chrome

Similar to this you can specify the class for different operating systems also. Following list shows you all the possible operating system codes which you can use as classes for that particular operating system.

win — Microsoft Windows

linux — Linux (x11 and linux)

mac — Mac OS

freebsd — FreeBSD

ipod — iPod Touch

iphone — iPhone

webtv — WebTV

mobile — J2ME Devices (ex: Opera mini)

For getting more information on CSS Browser Selector javascript, go to its homepage. To download Browser selector javascript click here

26 responses

I have read the css browser selector and i am confused on two things (First of all i am using Joomla and the menu on the left goes behind the text on IE7)
1. Where exactly am i going to paste the .js file?
2. Where exactly am i going to create the class files. Is it on index.php or some other file?

I appreciate you finding the time and energy to put this informative article together.
I once again find myself personally spending a lot of time both reading and posting comments.
But so what, it was still worth it!